At a time when ventilators critical to treating patients diagnosed with COVID-19 are in short supply, a dedicated group of radio amateurs is making important contributions to an effort to bring a low-cost human ventilator to market as quickly as possible.
According to an article recently posted to the web site of the ARRL, the national association for Amateur Radio, the effort being conducted by a team at University of Florida Health (the University’s academic health center) includes a retired professor of anesthesiology at the school, who also happens to be an electrical engineer and a radio amateur as well. Dr. Gordon Gibby (KX4Z) is directly involved in the development of control-system prototypes for an open-architecture ventilator.
Gibby, along with radio amateurs Jack Purdum (W8TEE), Ashhar Farhan (VU2ESE) and others are working to build and test a trial printed circuit board prior to large-scale fabrication. Gibby hopes that, when completed, the documented open-source design can then be easily replicated or further developed by any interested manufacturer.
Read the ARRL article discussing the work of Gibby and the UF team is available at the ARRL website.
